The New York Times wrote:Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; U.S. Blames Assad

By ANNE BARNARD and MICHAEL R. GORDONAPRIL 4, 2017

BEIRUT, Lebanon — One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war.

Western leaders including President Trump blamed the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.

Dozens of people, including children, died — some writhing, choking, gasping or foaming at the mouth — after breathing in poison that possibly contained a nerve agent or other banned chemicals, according to witnesses, doctors and rescue workers. They said the toxic substance spread after warplanes dropped bombs in the early morning hours. Some rescue workers grew ill and collapsed from proximity to the dead.

The opposition-run Health Department in Idlib Province, where the attack took place, said 69 people had died, providing a list of their names. The dead were still being identified, and some humanitarian groups said as many as 100 had died.

The government of Mr. Assad, who renounced chemical weapons nearly four years ago after a large chemical attack that American intelligence agencies concluded was carried out by his forces, denied that his military had been responsible, as he has done every time chemical munitions have been used in Syria.

A statement from the Syrian military accused insurgents of responsibility and said they had accused the army of using toxic weapons “every time they fail to achieve the goals of their sponsors.”

But only the Syrian military had the ability and the motive to carry out an aerial attack like the one that struck the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Russia offered another explanation. A spokesman for its Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Syrian warplanes had struck an insurgent storehouse containing toxic substances to be used in chemical weapons.

Witnesses to the attack said it began before 7 a.m. Numerous photographs and graphic videos posted online by activists and residents showed children and older adults gasping and struggling to breathe, or lying motionless in the mud as rescue workers ripped off victims’ clothes and hosed them down. The bodies of at least 10 children lay lined up on the ground or under a quilt.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been sent to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital was severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

The scale and brazenness of the assault threatened to further subvert a nominal and often violated cease-fire that had taken hold in parts of the country since Mr. Assad’s forces retook the northern city of Aleppo in December with Russian help, emboldening the Syrian leader to think he could win the war.

The attack also seemed likely to dampen peace talks that have been overseen by the United Nations in Geneva and by Russia and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Incredulous over the chemical assault, humanitarian groups demanded action from the United Nations Security Council, where partisan divides over who is to blame for the Syrian war have paralyzed its members almost since the conflict began in 2011.

On Tuesday night, Britain, France and the United States were pushing the Security Council to adopt a resolution that condemns the attack and orders the Syrian government to provide all flight logs, flight plans and names of commanders in charge of air operations, including those for Tuesday, to international investigators.

The draft resolution, negotiated among diplomats from the three countries on Tuesday, was later circulated to all 15 members of the Council. It could come up for a vote as early as Wednesday.

For Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly blamed what he has called President Barack Obama’s failures for the Syria crisis, the chemical weapons assault posed a potential policy dilemma and exposed some glaring contradictions in his own evolving positions on Syria.

The White House called the attack a “reprehensible” act against innocent people “that cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”

At the same time, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, denounced Mr. Obama for having failed to make good on his famous “red line” statement in 2012, suggesting he would intervene militarily in Syria if Mr. Assad used chemical weapons.

But in August 2013, Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Obama not to intervene after a chemical weapons attack near Damascus that American intelligence attributed to the Syrian military killed more than 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of children, according to United States government estimates at the time. “President Obama, do not attack Syria,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “There is no upside and tremendous downside.”

Mr. Trump’s administration, which would like to shift the focus in Syria entirely to fighting the Islamic State, has in recent days described Mr. Assad’s hold on his office as a political reality — an assertion that has drawn strong condemnation from influential Republicans who say Mr. Assad must leave power.

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who had said that Mr. Assad’s fate “will be decided by the Syrian people,” struck a sharply different tone on Tuesday, urging Mr. Assad’s allies Russia and Iran “to exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee that this sort of horrific attack never happens again.”

Mr. Tillerson added that “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

Russia has insisted that it had no military role in the strike. But a State Department official who briefed reporters in Washington said Russian officials were trying to evade their responsibility because Russia and Iran were guarantors of the Assad government’s commitment to adhere to a cease-fire in the peace talks that the Kremlin had helped organize in Astana.

Rescue workers from the White Helmets civil defense organization said that many children were among the dead and wounded. Radi Saad, who writes incident reports for the group, said that volunteers had reached the site not knowing a chemical was present and that five of them had suffered from exposure to the substance.

While chlorine gas attacks have become almost routine in northern Syria, this one was different, medical workers and witnesses said. Chlorine attacks usually kill just a few people, often those trapped in an enclosed space, and the gas dissipates quickly.

This time, people collapsed outdoors, and in much larger numbers. The symptoms were different: They included the pinpoint pupils of victims that characterize nerve agents and other banned poisons. One doctor posted a video of a patient’s eye, showing the pupil reduced to a dot. Several people were sickened simply by coming into contact with victims.

The opposition minister of health, Mohamad Firas al-Jundi, said in a video that he had been in a field hospital at 7:30 a.m. when more than 100 people arrived wounded or sickened.

“The patients are in the corridors and on the floors of the operation rooms, the E.R.s and in the patient rooms,” he said. “I saw more than 10 deaths due to this attack.”

Symptoms included suffocation; fluid in the lungs, with foam coming from the mouth; unconsciousness; spasms; and paralysis, he said.

“It’s a shocking act,” he said. “The world knows and is aware of what’s happening in Syria, and we are ready to submit evidence to criminal laboratories to prove the use of these gases.”

A 14-year-old resident of the attacked town, Mariam Abu Khalil, said she had left home for her examination on the Quran — scheduled for early morning because fewer bombings were expected then — when the attack took place. On the way, she saw an aircraft drop a bomb on a one-story building a few dozen yards away. In a telephone interview Tuesday night, she described an explosion like a yellow mushroom cloud that stung her eyes. “It was like a winter fog,” she said.

Sheltering in her home nearby, she saw several residents arrive by car to help the wounded. “When they got out, they inhaled the gas and died,” she said.

The attack appeared to be the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the August 2013 assault. Under threat of United States retaliation, Mr. Assad agreed to a Russian-American deal to eliminate his country’s chemical weapons program, which until that time it had denied having, and to join an international treaty banning chemical weapons.

But the operation took far longer than expected and raised questions about whether all the materials were accounted for. The head of the international monitoring body, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, complained in an internal report about misleading statements from Damascus and expressed concern about possible undeclared chemical weapons.

Since then, the organization, working with the United Nations, has found that the Syrian government used chlorine gas as a weapon three times in 2014 and 2015, violating the treaty. Rebel fighters, doctors and antigovernment activists say there have been numerous other chlorine attacks, including at least two in the past week, in one case killing a doctor as he worked.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has also accused the Islamic State of using banned mustard gas in Iraq and Syria. The area around Khan Sheikhoun is not held by the Islamic State, but by other insurgents: Qaeda-linked militants and a variety of other rebel groups.

A chemical weapons attack, if carried out by the government, would be a brazen statement of impunity, coming during a major international meeting in Brussels where officials are debating whether the European Union and other countries will contribute billions of dollars for reconstructing Syria if it is presided over by a government run by Mr. Assad.

This is an interesting test. What is minority-president Trump going to be doing about this? He's all show when it comes to the pickup truck army of ISIS, but this gassing incident is real state-sponsored terrorism. Obama put a stop to Assad's shenanigans two years ago by threatening Assad.

We are all eyes and ears, Donnie. You got your shit together?? Although urging Obama not to enter Syria on twitter two years ago, during the campaign Trump was frequently critical of Obama's foreign policy, calling it weak. Now's your big audition time, Donnie. Let's see whacha got, tough guy. You said nukes were not off the table for Europe...how bout Syria? Go take a golden shower and mull it over.

Meanwhile, Trump better have some response...not only to Syria's Assad, but to North Korea, which is getting a little randy with four more SRM's into the Sea of Japan. Threats won't do it after being so critical of Obama, who incidentally kept us out of war whatever some say. They're calling you, Donnie...not with a slap on the cheek, but with a kick in that fat ass of yours.

Trump's turning out to be a bigger pussy than those he grabs while boozin' at Studio 54.

Trump is weak; he thought he could bluster his way through this job because people treated him like the bully he wants to be seen as on The Apprentice. Whole new stage now and the world is obviously unimpressed.

_________________“As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.”

CNN wrote:Kaine to Trump: Syria slaughter is now on your watchGabby Kaufman

Sen. Tim Kaine, D- Va., rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to blame former President Obama for the continuing carnage in Syria, said it was time for President Trump to take responsibility for American policy in the Mideast.

After a toxic gas attack reportedly left at least 70 people in Syria dead Tuesday, the White House released a statement faulting Obama’s inaction in the Middle Eastern country after declaring the use of chemical weapons a “red line.” In 2013, a joint resolution that would have authorized Obama to take military action in Syria was introduced, but it never received a vote, as the Syrian government quickly accepted a deal negotiated by the United States and Russia to turn over its stockpile of chemical weapons.

During that period, Trump, as a private citizen, was sending out tweets demanding that the United States not get involved in the Syrian war, repeatedly urging Obama to “stay out of Syria,” “do not attack Syria,” and one emphatic assertion that “Syria is NOT our problem.”

“That statement of President Trump’s is rich,” Kaine said on CNN’s New Day. “He’s president now, he’s commander in chief. When something happens and he tries to blame President Obama — give me a break… He’s got to put on his big boy pants and own up to the job.”

Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016, said his criticism of the Trump administration wasn’t driven by politics. “I was as critical of the Obama administration on this as I am critical of the Trump administration,” he said.

He called for a budget including a “robust provision of aid” for Syrian refugees and for prosecuting the Syrian president for his use of chemical weapons.

“Why haven’t we prosecuted Bashar al-Assad for war crimes against his own people?” Kaine asked. “This has been going on for years. We just celebrated the sixth anniversary of this civil war and the atrocities of Bashar al-Assad, but so far, nobody’s been willing to hold him accountable.”

In view of the warm relations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of the Trump administration, Kaine added: “I worry they are trying to be cozy with Russia — so cozy with Russia that they are unwilling to call out Russia’s henchman, Bashar al-Assad, who is only able to carry out these atrocities because of the support from the Russians and the Iranians.”

The New York Times wrote:Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; U.S. Blames Assad

By ANNE BARNARD and MICHAEL R. GORDONAPRIL 4, 2017

BEIRUT, Lebanon — One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war.

Western leaders including President Trump blamed the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.

Dozens of people, including children, died — some writhing, choking, gasping or foaming at the mouth — after breathing in poison that possibly contained a nerve agent or other banned chemicals, according to witnesses, doctors and rescue workers. They said the toxic substance spread after warplanes dropped bombs in the early morning hours. Some rescue workers grew ill and collapsed from proximity to the dead.

The opposition-run Health Department in Idlib Province, where the attack took place, said 69 people had died, providing a list of their names. The dead were still being identified, and some humanitarian groups said as many as 100 had died.

The government of Mr. Assad, who renounced chemical weapons nearly four years ago after a large chemical attack that American intelligence agencies concluded was carried out by his forces, denied that his military had been responsible, as he has done every time chemical munitions have been used in Syria.

A statement from the Syrian military accused insurgents of responsibility and said they had accused the army of using toxic weapons “every time they fail to achieve the goals of their sponsors.”

But only the Syrian military had the ability and the motive to carry out an aerial attack like the one that struck the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Russia offered another explanation. A spokesman for its Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Syrian warplanes had struck an insurgent storehouse containing toxic substances to be used in chemical weapons.

Witnesses to the attack said it began before 7 a.m. Numerous photographs and graphic videos posted online by activists and residents showed children and older adults gasping and struggling to breathe, or lying motionless in the mud as rescue workers ripped off victims’ clothes and hosed them down. The bodies of at least 10 children lay lined up on the ground or under a quilt.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been sent to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital was severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

The scale and brazenness of the assault threatened to further subvert a nominal and often violated cease-fire that had taken hold in parts of the country since Mr. Assad’s forces retook the northern city of Aleppo in December with Russian help, emboldening the Syrian leader to think he could win the war.

The attack also seemed likely to dampen peace talks that have been overseen by the United Nations in Geneva and by Russia and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Incredulous over the chemical assault, humanitarian groups demanded action from the United Nations Security Council, where partisan divides over who is to blame for the Syrian war have paralyzed its members almost since the conflict began in 2011.

On Tuesday night, Britain, France and the United States were pushing the Security Council to adopt a resolution that condemns the attack and orders the Syrian government to provide all flight logs, flight plans and names of commanders in charge of air operations, including those for Tuesday, to international investigators.

The draft resolution, negotiated among diplomats from the three countries on Tuesday, was later circulated to all 15 members of the Council. It could come up for a vote as early as Wednesday.

For Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly blamed what he has called President Barack Obama’s failures for the Syria crisis, the chemical weapons assault posed a potential policy dilemma and exposed some glaring contradictions in his own evolving positions on Syria.

The White House called the attack a “reprehensible” act against innocent people “that cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”

At the same time, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, denounced Mr. Obama for having failed to make good on his famous “red line” statement in 2012, suggesting he would intervene militarily in Syria if Mr. Assad used chemical weapons.

But in August 2013, Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Obama not to intervene after a chemical weapons attack near Damascus that American intelligence attributed to the Syrian military killed more than 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of children, according to United States government estimates at the time. “President Obama, do not attack Syria,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “There is no upside and tremendous downside.”

Mr. Trump’s administration, which would like to shift the focus in Syria entirely to fighting the Islamic State, has in recent days described Mr. Assad’s hold on his office as a political reality — an assertion that has drawn strong condemnation from influential Republicans who say Mr. Assad must leave power.

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who had said that Mr. Assad’s fate “will be decided by the Syrian people,” struck a sharply different tone on Tuesday, urging Mr. Assad’s allies Russia and Iran “to exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee that this sort of horrific attack never happens again.”

Mr. Tillerson added that “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

Russia has insisted that it had no military role in the strike. But a State Department official who briefed reporters in Washington said Russian officials were trying to evade their responsibility because Russia and Iran were guarantors of the Assad government’s commitment to adhere to a cease-fire in the peace talks that the Kremlin had helped organize in Astana.

Rescue workers from the White Helmets civil defense organization said that many children were among the dead and wounded. Radi Saad, who writes incident reports for the group, said that volunteers had reached the site not knowing a chemical was present and that five of them had suffered from exposure to the substance.

While chlorine gas attacks have become almost routine in northern Syria, this one was different, medical workers and witnesses said. Chlorine attacks usually kill just a few people, often those trapped in an enclosed space, and the gas dissipates quickly.

This time, people collapsed outdoors, and in much larger numbers. The symptoms were different: They included the pinpoint pupils of victims that characterize nerve agents and other banned poisons. One doctor posted a video of a patient’s eye, showing the pupil reduced to a dot. Several people were sickened simply by coming into contact with victims.

The opposition minister of health, Mohamad Firas al-Jundi, said in a video that he had been in a field hospital at 7:30 a.m. when more than 100 people arrived wounded or sickened.

“The patients are in the corridors and on the floors of the operation rooms, the E.R.s and in the patient rooms,” he said. “I saw more than 10 deaths due to this attack.”

Symptoms included suffocation; fluid in the lungs, with foam coming from the mouth; unconsciousness; spasms; and paralysis, he said.

“It’s a shocking act,” he said. “The world knows and is aware of what’s happening in Syria, and we are ready to submit evidence to criminal laboratories to prove the use of these gases.”

A 14-year-old resident of the attacked town, Mariam Abu Khalil, said she had left home for her examination on the Quran — scheduled for early morning because fewer bombings were expected then — when the attack took place. On the way, she saw an aircraft drop a bomb on a one-story building a few dozen yards away. In a telephone interview Tuesday night, she described an explosion like a yellow mushroom cloud that stung her eyes. “It was like a winter fog,” she said.

Sheltering in her home nearby, she saw several residents arrive by car to help the wounded. “When they got out, they inhaled the gas and died,” she said.

The attack appeared to be the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the August 2013 assault. Under threat of United States retaliation, Mr. Assad agreed to a Russian-American deal to eliminate his country’s chemical weapons program, which until that time it had denied having, and to join an international treaty banning chemical weapons.

But the operation took far longer than expected and raised questions about whether all the materials were accounted for. The head of the international monitoring body, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, complained in an internal report about misleading statements from Damascus and expressed concern about possible undeclared chemical weapons.

Since then, the organization, working with the United Nations, has found that the Syrian government used chlorine gas as a weapon three times in 2014 and 2015, violating the treaty. Rebel fighters, doctors and antigovernment activists say there have been numerous other chlorine attacks, including at least two in the past week, in one case killing a doctor as he worked.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has also accused the Islamic State of using banned mustard gas in Iraq and Syria. The area around Khan Sheikhoun is not held by the Islamic State, but by other insurgents: Qaeda-linked militants and a variety of other rebel groups.

A chemical weapons attack, if carried out by the government, would be a brazen statement of impunity, coming during a major international meeting in Brussels where officials are debating whether the European Union and other countries will contribute billions of dollars for reconstructing Syria if it is presided over by a government run by Mr. Assad.

This is an interesting test. What is minority-president Trump going to be doing about this? He's all show when it comes to the pickup truck army of ISIS, but this gassing incident is real state-sponsored terrorism. Obama put a stop to Assad's shenanigans two years ago by threatening Assad.

We are all eyes and ears, Donnie. You got your shit together?? Although urging Obama not to enter Syria on twitter two years ago, during the campaign Trump was frequently critical of Obama's foreign policy, calling it weak. Now's your big audition time, Donnie. Let's see whacha got, tough guy. You said nukes were not off the table for Europe...how bout Syria? Go take a golden shower and mull it over.

Meanwhile, Trump better have some response...not only to Syria's Assad, but to North Korea, which is getting a little randy with four more SRM's into the Sea of Japan. Threats won't do it after being so critical of Obama, who incidentally kept us out of war whatever some say. They're calling you, Donnie...not with a slap on the cheek, but with a kick in that fat ass of yours.

Trump's turning out to be a bigger pussy than those he grabs while boozin' at Studio 54.

can you explain how obama stopped him. Obama placed a red line over chemical attacks and when assad did them did absolutely nothing at all.

_________________"If a socialist understood economics, he wouldn't be a socialist" : Friedrich Hayek"

I know a place where your speech is free

and the only mod is me

Israel uses weapons to protect its people, the Palestinians use people to protect their weapons

Deno wrote:can you explain how obama stopped him. Obama placed a red line over chemical attacks and when assad did them did absolutely nothing at all.

Gladly, Dean, through threats and diplomacy. The Republican Congress prevented Obama from taking any military, or even covert action, so Obama had to find other means. I'm sure it's a long story, and nobody knows the full details, but no question it worked. For two years Assad dared not use chemical weapons.

Then, within 75-days of minority-President Trump taking office, the gassing starts again. I guess Assad knows a plump cream-puff when he sees one.

The big question isn't about Obama. The big question today is what is minority-elected Trump going to do about it.

Intelligence? Um...Mr. Trump, didn't you say they were all Nazis? I'm sure, after that, they'll go out of their way for you.

Military? With our "loser" soldiers? Half of them will cut-and-run, the other half will "get caught", and you know how you don't like soldiers who "get caught" Mr. Trump. And don't talk to me about our "rubbish" generals...no help there.

But, the Rednecks elected the president, so we'll wait and see what kind of a response he can produce. He said yesterday Assad crossed "many" red lines. What's the response?

One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war. The United States has blamed Bashar Assad while Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that he has “100 percent certainty” that Assad himself was directly responsible for the attack:

The murderous chemical weapons attacks on citizens in Idlib province in Syria and on a local hospital were carried out on the direct order and planned by the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, using Syrian planes.

Syria has denied responsibility for the attack, so the US accusation and Liberman’s statement (presumably based on Israeli intelligence) are significant. Liberman also said Israel would not become involved militarily to stop the bloodshed, but called on the international community to help do so. Some in Israel have urged that the country “do something,” in some cases invoking comparisons to nations who stood idly by during the Holocaust. We touched on this topic in yesterday’s IDNS, and pointed out that while it’s simple to generically call for Israel to “do something,” what that “something” could realistically be is a more complex question. Several issues to consider:

Full scale invasion/occupation of Syria isn’t a realistic option for Israel acting alone;

Even limited attacks on Assad’s forces or resources without international backing could put Israel into the dangerous position of being in combat against Russia, who has been backing Assad militarily;

A power vacuum left by an attack on Assad’s forces may be filled by Islamic State (ISIS), Al Qaeda linked groups, or others: unless Israel were to take an active role on the ground to prevent that;

Limited pinpoint strikes on specific military targets would more or less replicate what the international community has already been doing since 2011, apparently to little effect;

Diplomacy and pressure also seem to have been ineffective: in 2014, in what was claimed to be a diplomatic victory of sorts, the Obama administration announced that removal of chemical weapons from Syria had been “completed.” Obviously, that was not, and still is not, the case.

This is not to say that there isn’t some action that Israel acting alone could potentially take, but it is not at all clear what that action might be. When the world acts together, the practical options become significantly greater.

I could not giving a flying fuck, over the blame game between Obama and Trump on this. Enough is enough and is clear that Assad has already committed such crimes already. How can the world sit by that within a couple of years hundreds of thousands are dead. To those apologists who blame the west, I say to you, that you are idiots without a utter clue. This is mass murder on a massive scale like as seen with Saddam. This is a dictator like Saddam, being propped up by super powers.

Raggamuffin wrote:Isn't it possible though that the chemical was in the building which was bombed? It's said to be sarin, which Saddam used, and also some terrorists in Japan used it in the subway.

Well if they did target a building with sarin, it would destroy the sarin gas, in the explosion.

wrong...,.

sarin is often stored and used as a "binary" agent...that is to say, two seperate (relatively non toxic) "precursors are mixed during the shells flight to produce the gas and then dispersed by the shell as it lands

IF there was a store of these chemicals (and we all know how careful these isis types are with things that go bang etc) and someone dropped a bomb amongst them then you would get instant mixing of the chemicals, which would helpfully be volatilisied by the explosion (the heat of the explosion may destroy some of the mixture but is unlikely to destroy it all, moreover sarin is relatively thermo stable )

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

Well if they did target a building with sarin, it would destroy the sarin gas, in the explosion.

wrong...,.

sarin is often stored and used as a "binary" agent...that is to say, two seperate (relatively non toxic) "precursors are mixed during the shells flight to produce the gas and then dispersed by the shell as it lands

IF there was a store of these chemicals (and we all know how careful these isis types are with things that go bang etc) and someone dropped a bomb amongst them then you would get instant mixing of the chemicals, which would helpfully be volatilisied by the explosion (the heat of the explosion may destroy some of the mixture but is unlikely to destroy it all, moreover sarin is relatively thermo stable )

Moreover, if I understand the physics of the high explosives used correctly, the volatilised chemicals would be propagated away from the center of the explosion, carried on the shockwave, which travells some meters IN FRONT of the flame front of the explosion, thus not much would be subjected to temperatures in excess of its degradation temperature.

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

Lord Foul wrote:Moreover, if I understand the physics of the high explosives used correctly, the volatilised chemicals would be propagated away from the center of the explosion, carried on the shockwave, which travells some meters IN FRONT of the flame front of the explosion, thus not much would be subjected to temperatures in excess of its degradation temperature.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Hamish de Bretton Gordon, director of Doctors Under Fire and former commanding officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Regiment, said this claim was “completely untrue”.“No I think this [claim] is pretty fanciful, no doubt the Russians trying to protect their allies,” he said. “Axiomatically, if you blow up sarin, you destroy it.”“It’s very clear it’s a sarin attack,” he added. “The view that it’s an al-Qaida or rebel stockpile of sarin that’s been blown up in an explosion, I think is completely unsustainable and completely untrue.”

Hours after the attack, a hospital treating the injured was also hit. Images taken inside the clinic appeared to depict the blast as it happened. Photographs and videos taken at the scene and in evacuation areas nearby showed rows of small, lifeless children, some with foam visible near their mouths.

Lord Foul wrote:Moreover, if I understand the physics of the high explosives used correctly, the volatilised chemicals would be propagated away from the center of the explosion, carried on the shockwave, which travells some meters IN FRONT of the flame front of the explosion, thus not much would be subjected to temperatures in excess of its degradation temperature.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Hamish de Bretton Gordon, director of Doctors Under Fire and former commanding officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Regiment, said this claim was “completely untrue”.“No I think this [claim] is pretty fanciful, no doubt the Russians trying to protect their allies,” he said. “Axiomatically, if you blow up sarin, you destroy it.”“It’s very clear it’s a sarin attack,” he added. “The view that it’s an al-Qaida or rebel stockpile of sarin that’s been blown up in an explosion, I think is completely unsustainable and completely untrue.”

If he says so......

Can disposal be done on the battlefield?

It can be, though not without some problems. Mauroni describes a process used in Iraq in 1991. "We'd come across a bunch of rockets, and you suspect there might be some chemicals in them," he says. "The field expedient way, if you're in a hurry, is to blow it up in place." Army Explosive Ordinance Demolition teams would use a 10-to-1 ratio of explosives to suspected chemical weapons.

however ...THAT is a different story to a bomb landing in a storage area full of the various chemicals init?

but of course if he says so it MUST be right....

ok...I'll let you have your (self opinionated) moment of glory....

but...let me tell you something.......

WATCH YOUR GOB sun beam.......

you are on your high horse again.....

tone down the attitude....I have ventured NO opinion on who is to blame for this (personally the odds are on Assad...given his record and regard for "civillians")

I happen to think YOU are wrong in your assumption, I happen to think that this gentleman you rely on is making "broad brush" statements, and probably following a political line ....

he is of course quite correct in saying "if you blow up sarin (directly) you will destroy it, since the temperature is sufficient to degrade it...

what if the sarin is located 100 m away and merely volatilised by the blast front???

I'd love to ask him that ...

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

I'm giving you a warning .....get of that high horse and stop with the constant abuse of anyone who happens to disagree with you.

1991 yes thats about right...are you telling me that explosives have changed that much in a few years...especially the sort assad is likely to have ...?

where am I an assad appologist...withdraw that and appologise....

and...whilst i hate to be forced to point it out...you WILL do as you are told vis your attitude to others..... (please note...this does not suppose any objection to your OPINIONS on the subject merely to your social ineptitude and poor ability to relate to your fellow debators)

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

I'm giving you a warning .....get of that high horse and stop with the constant abuse of anyone who happens to disagree with you.

1991 yes thats about right...are you telling me that explosives have changed that much in a few years...especially the sort assad is likely to have ...?

where am I an assad appologist...withdraw that and appologise....

and...whilst i hate to be forced to point it out...you WILL do as you are told vis your attitude to others..... (please note...this does not suppose any objection to your OPINIONS on the subject merely to your social ineptitude and poor ability to relate to your fellow debators)

"I have ventured NO opinion on who is to blame for this (personally the odds are on Assad...given his record and regard for "civillians")"

and, given the evidence in the hospital, theres not much doubt about who is to blame..

HOWEVER

that does NOT entirely preclude the posession of the substances by Isis, nor does it render what I have said untrue...

the POINT i was making, was that merely explofding a bomb in proximity to a store of these chemicals could quite possibly result in the events described earlier.....That blowing up a dump of this stuff is NO guarantee, unless its done properly, that the sarin will be destroyed.....

NOTHING was mentioned in anything I said as to who was to blame, that was NOT the intent of my post..

so lord know nothing go figure who looks an ass....

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

"I have ventured NO opinion on who is to blame for this (personally the odds are on Assad...given his record and regard for "civillians")"

and, given the evidence in the hospital, theres not much doubt about who is to blame..

HOWEVER

that does NOT entirely preclude the posession of the substances by Isis, nor does it render what I have said untrue...

the POINT i was making, was that merely explofding a bomb in proximity to a store of these chemicals could quite possibly result in the events described earlier.....That blowing up a dump of this stuff is NO guarantee, unless its done properly, that the sarin will be destroyed.....

NOTHING was mentioned in anything I said as to who was to blame, that was NOT the intent of my post..

so lord know nothing go figure who looks an ass....

Glad to see you were in error and badly so.

So your warning was based off you not liking me telling you that you were being silly

I'm giving you a warning .....get of that high horse and stop with the constant abuse of anyone who happens to disagree with you.

1991 yes thats about right...are you telling me that explosives have changed that much in a few years...especially the sort assad is likely to have ...?

where am I an assad appologist...withdraw that and appologise....

and...whilst i hate to be forced to point it out...you WILL do as you are told vis your attitude to others..... (please note...this does not suppose any objection to your OPINIONS on the subject merely to your social ineptitude and poor ability to relate to your fellow debators)

Whoopdeedoo

The only abuse I gave to anyone tonight was you

why? is disagreeing with something you "claim" a reason to be abusive? or ore you "on one again" and looking for a target?also....I dont care if its "only me tonight" darling.....your attitude for some time now has been excessively abrasive, beligerant and unpleasant, and I'm asking/telling you to change your tune

Sop you are abusing your powers, because I belittled you

no...I'm USING my powers (cue x files music) to stop you being a geranium to everyone who dares disagree with you

There is a simple solution to that.

Stop posting babble

you would be an "expert on that though

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

why? is disagreeing with something you "claim" a reason to be abusive? or ore you "on one again" and looking for a target?also....I dont care if its "only me tonight" darling.....your attitude for some time now has been excessively abrasive, beligerant and unpleasant, and I'm asking/telling you to change your tune

Sop you are abusing your powers, because I belittled you

no...I'm USING my powers (cue x files music) to stop you being a geranium to everyone who dares disagree with you

There is a simple solution to that.

Stop posting babble

you would be an "expert on that though

What powers do you really have Victor?

Seriously?

You have no powers over me and when I say, you are being an arse, I mean it, more out of respect for you, because i could not believe you jumped in with such bullshit.

So any threats from you are meaningless to me

warn me, ban me, what does that prove? That you sit by and allow others to be abusive and only pull me up when I am to you?

"I have ventured NO opinion on who is to blame for this (personally the odds are on Assad...given his record and regard for "civillians")"

and, given the evidence in the hospital, theres not much doubt about who is to blame..

HOWEVER

that does NOT entirely preclude the posession of the substances by Isis, nor does it render what I have said untrue...

the POINT i was making, was that merely explofding a bomb in proximity to a store of these chemicals could quite possibly result in the events described earlier.....That blowing up a dump of this stuff is NO guarantee, unless its done properly, that the sarin will be destroyed.....

NOTHING was mentioned in anything I said as to who was to blame, that was NOT the intent of my post..

so lord know nothing go figure who looks an ass....

Glad to see you were in error and badly so.

So your warning was based off you not liking me telling you that you were being silly

At least you have the humility to admit you were wrong

Your warning however was punching above your weight

"HOWEVER

that does NOT entirely preclude the posession of the substances by Isis, nor does it render what I have said untrue...

the POINT i was making, was that merely explofding a bomb in proximity to a store of these chemicals could quite possibly result in the events described earlier.....That blowing up a dump of this stuff is NO guarantee, unless its done properly, that the sarin will be destroyed.....

NOTHING was mentioned in anything I said as to who was to blame, that was NOT the intent of my post..

so lord know nothing go figure who looks an ass...."

would you like to explain.......how does what i have said makes me wrong

I assigned NO blame....to anyone initially

and what I said is still true and accurate....

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

So your warning was based off you not liking me telling you that you were being silly

At least you have the humility to admit you were wrong

Your warning however was punching above your weight

"HOWEVER

that does NOT entirely preclude the posession of the substances by Isis, nor does it render what I have said untrue...

the POINT i was making, was that merely explofding a bomb in proximity to a store of these chemicals could quite possibly result in the events described earlier.....That blowing up a dump of this stuff is NO guarantee, unless its done properly, that the sarin will be destroyed.....

NOTHING was mentioned in anything I said as to who was to blame, that was NOT the intent of my post..

so lord know nothing go figure who looks an ass...."

would you like to explain.......how does what i have said makes me wrong

I assigned NO blame....to anyone initially

and what I said is still true and accurate....

Simple equation for you

Show me the levels of sarin you claim were stored and how then after an explosion it could effect people miles away and not be mostly destroyed?

Raggamuffin wrote:How is sarin usually stored? I don't see why a bomb dropping on a building wouldn't release it if it was being stored.

I'm not sure how its stored OFFICIALLY...as two seperate chemicals in ton containers its reported, and then loaded into the shells where its mixed when the shell is fired/bomb dropped However...if Isis were to have it, it wouldnt surprise me at all to find it in gallon glass jars and plastic drums...

and you are right ...from a purely "theoretical" stand point...if the two precursors were stored in close proximity and subject to the blast of an UNCONTROLLED explosion...as opposed to the controlled explosions used for destruction.........there is a likelyhood that the two would be vapourised by the shockwave (rather than heat), mix and disperse.... Thorins expert is quite correct...sa far as it goes, but .....I'd like someone to ask him the uncomfortable question ...what if....the explosion was far enough away to reduce the heat flash...but close enough to still have a substantial shockwave...

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

Raggamuffin wrote:What does the hospital have to do with it? Weren't people taken there after they were affected by the gas?

the hospital was hit directly with one of these shells.....and its fairly certain there was no sarin stored there.....so .......

_________________If at any time in 2017 I have annoyed you, pissed you off or said the wrong thing....Suck it up snowflake, cause 2018 AINT gonna be any different

There are those who's opinion I value, there are those who's opinion I neither value or scorn, and then there are those who's opinion I just ignore as insignificant...I can assure you the latter outnumber the first two combined by a whole order of magnitude

[b].(It's hard to remember that the task is to drain the swamp, when you are up to your arse in alligators)

Raggamuffin wrote:How is sarin usually stored? I don't see why a bomb dropping on a building wouldn't release it if it was being stored.

I'm not sure how its stored OFFICIALLY...as two seperate chemicals in ton containers its reported, and then loaded into the shells where its mixed when the shell is fired/bomb dropped However...if Isis were to have it, it wouldnt surprise me at all to find it in gallon glass jars and plastic drums...

and you are right ...from a purely "theoretical" stand point...if the two precursors were stored in close proximity and subject to the blast of an UNCONTROLLED explosion...as opposed to the controlled explosions used for destruction.........there is a likelyhood that the two would be vapourised by the shockwave (rather than heat), mix and disperse.... Thorins expert is quite correct...sa far as it goes, but .....I'd like someone to ask him the uncomfortable question ...what if....the explosion was far enough away to reduce the heat flash...but close enough to still have a substantial shockwave...

But that is hypothetical and not of this situation.

If it was stored as you know, most, if not all of the sarin would have been destroyed.

Ho could a direct hit on a hospital cause near instance death of sarin, with the evidence of the foaming of the mouths of the kids?